Licence to chill

Not a hair out of place, not a wrinkle in his Brioni suit. That's the Bond we expect. But not the one we get in Die Another Day. Bond the smooth operator (Pierce Brosnan, on his fourth outing) becomes a hairy captive within minutes of his 20th mission since 1962. Down the great jetblack waves of North Korea he surfs in the exhilarating overture - which we assume is the mini-movie that customarily ends with Bond battered but victorious. Not this time. After a complex diamond deal with two renegade generals has turned nasty, Bond is running for his life.

In a gripping chase on hovercrafts that turns the mined no-man's land into a dodgem rink in Hell, Bond's new director Lee Tamahori proves himself more gritty-realistic than romanticgung ho! Bond, too, is transfigured: he looks destructible... knocked about by the world... in a word, he looks human.

In this dangerously orchestrated and pulsatingly edited sequence, the traditional Bond film joins seamlessly with the edgier action blockbusters of today. James still gasps "Saved by the bell" as it ends with him clinging to the hammer of a temple carillon. But that oldstyle, tight-cornered quip is the sole concession to frivolity. And just as we expect to be ushered into the main film on the wave of laughter it releases, Bond has things done to him by the enemy that ring convincingly, uncomfortably real: held prisoner in a vile hole, head-ducked repeatedly under water, turned into a replica Terry Waite hostage, bearded, hirsute, dirty and demoralised. He's still James Bond, but not as we knew him.

It's true that Die Another Day eventually restores 007 to his cheeky form and regulation fitness. But it pulls off a good joke doing so: Bond freed in a hostage exchange and strolling, still in dungeon clobber, through Hong Kong's poshest hotel lobby to order a drink ("the '61 Bollinger, I think") and "the Presidential Suite" (whose roomservice comes with some tricky double-agentry) .

It's the narrative tension between Traditional Bond and Bond the New Man that makes Die Another Day hugely enjoyable. It's an anniversary bazaar that features the favourite mementoes from past exploits: Rosa Kleb's dagger-toed shoe, From Russia With Love's exploding brief case, the Union Jack parachute in OHMSS, the jet-pack from Thunderball ... Bond even gets his signature Martini shaken by the shudder of the BA airliner as it's served by the pretty hostess (Roger Moore's daughter, Deborah).

Even early on, in that hard-hitting opening sequence, they resurrect the freakish type of assassin (think Oddjob, think Jaws) who'll stalk Bond until death them do part: a Korean (Rick Yune) who got blown up while peeping into a case of uncut diamonds and thereafter has more jewels imbedded in his face than a Swiss watch. But serial refreshment comes from its realistic moments. Judi Dench's "M" turns into an icy Lady Macbeth, informing 007 he's lost her confidence and his licence-to-kill is revoked. It's the British take on the Clint Eastwood scene where Dirty Harry turns in his badge.

Turning Bond into a lone ranger driven by revenge usefully removes the political homage that this American-produced series has always had to pay the British secret service. James comes back into the MI5 fold soon enough, in an amusing trompe-l'oeil sequence set in the virtual-reality shooting range inside MI5 HQ. But losing mother's love, so to speak, drives Bond temporarily out into the cold to the plot's grim advantage.

Bond's new girl, named Jinx (Halle Berry), undergoes an upgrade, too: no longer the expendable totty turned on like the hot-water tap, but a proactive co-star, waging her own mini-war with the enemy, shooting to kill without flinching, and wielding a deft knife in her climactic battle with the wellnamed Miranda Frost (Rosamund Pike). Sex with Berry comes closer to orgasm in this film than one ever thought to see (though not to imagine).

Her entrance, rising like a streamlined Venus from the waters off Cuba, hunting knife in her waist harness, orange bikini instead of Ursula Andress's all-white outfit, shows how little outwardly has changed over 40 years - except this lady has a spunky attitude and an agenda of her own.

The villain, too, masks a genetic surprise that torture would not screw out of me. Named Gustav Graves (Toby Stephens), he's a diamond tycoon out to destroy the world. ("Same old dream," Bond sighs - but what can you do when all the other plots have been used?) He and Bond duel with foils, rapiers, sabres and broadswords in the appositely named Blades Club and show the authentic Ian Fleming relish for aristocratic cruelty and disregard for bystanders as they reduce the club's fixtures and fittings - including, it seems, Sir Joshua Reynolds's painting of The Blue Boy - to ribbons and matchwood. You could easily miss Madonna in a stand-by guest role: I did.

Where screenwriters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade have had to bend the pen and pay a courtesy call on characters like Moneypenny (Samantha Bond) and "Q" the armourer (John Cleese), who don't really fit into the stern new story line, they at least acquit themselves wittily - though assigning Bond an Aston Martin V12 Vanquish that can turn invisible is taking high-tech a step-change too far. (Leave something for the future, boys.)

The full check list of action sequences is too lengthy to list here: I single out the villain's lair under the foliage-filled geodesic domes of Cornwall's Eden Project, now relocated to Iceland; the free-for-all with lasers whip-lashing the combatants; the torture by diamondcutting machine; and the sight of Halle Berry's back view in a cut-to-the-sternum gown of fuchsia-coloured crystal beads designed by Donatella Versace in which catching pneumonia is the very least of the risks she runs at the showdown in the palatial hotel built of ice, where bar girls skate over the floor and Bond's love-bed is an ice-sculpture shaped like a giant swan.

Car chases are now the clichès of all blockbusters. But Die Another Day stages its titanic pursuit on a frozen lake where the vehicles may hit an iceberg as the villain's holistic weaponry, the concentrated rays of the sun, make Bond's trajectory a race against slush.

In short, there's enough of the well-seasoned Bond to keep the faith with audiences who've grown old along with James; but also a tonal shift in character and tempo for the younger mob that keeps this phenomenal series continually enjoyable.

Is it too long? Yes, like all films nowadays, it is: by 20 minutes, as all parties struggle for the controls of the villain's flying fortress from which Gustav Graves, like Icarus, surveys the globe and declares "Japan is a bug waiting to be squashed".

But when all's been said and nothing more's left to be done, Die Another Day is an impressive production, and critics who say "... it bores me," as some sniffy colleagues have done, should consider turning in their own licences. He who is tired of Bond, is tired of life.

Die Another Day opens today. Alexander Walker reviews the rest of this week's new films tomorrow.